Carbon emissions ‘hidden’ in imported goods revealed
Date added: 26 April, 2011
according to two studies.
of researchers say they should.
planned in the UK up to 2025.
News: “There is a degree of delusion about emissions cuts in developed nations.
They are not really cuts at all if countries are simply buying in products they
used to manufacture.
of their emissions, whether they are produced domestically or outsourced through
traded goods.”
several years, and the methodology to track emissions pathways is developing.
countries and 57 economic sectors from 1990 to 2008.
of CO2 in 1990 (20% of global emissions) to 7.8Gt of CO2 in 2008 (26%).
their territorial emissions – particularly from goods such cars and clothes.
1990 rather than decreasing them, as politicians typically claim.
planned by government into the 2020s may be offset by ever-increasing levels of
CO2 in imports.
– what to do about it – is more difficult.
consider border taxes on imports from countries with no controls on CO2 emissions…
though this is controversial and will be some way down the line.”
how uncomfortable this issue is proving for rich nations.
among some British civil servants that the UK insists on basing its emissions
calculations solely on domestic emissions.
has improved the CO2 impacts of our products since 1992, the rise in UK consumption
has outstripped the improvements achieved.
in decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation.”
reporting domestic emissions, as these form the basis for international climate
negotiations.
opaque, and that the methodology for calculating outsourced emissions is unreliable.
They say all this creates even greater pressure for the UK to persuade China to
cut its own emissions.
perfect but the problem has been recognised for several years and the calculations
are getting better all the time. In the UK our emissions are up – not down.
which wants to be the greenest ever and is committed to data transparency it’s
essential that the British government publishes the best data available right
away – and then figures out what to do about it.”
the government likes us to believe. Imports, IT and aviation are all increasing
their energy use and carbon emissions, while the rest of society is meant to be
trying its best to make sigificant cuts. Now that the iniquity of embodied energy
in UK imports has been demonstrated, and the size of the UK’s real carbon emissions
is nearer to be revealed, there is even greater urgency to cut emissions elsewhere
in the economy. Aviation now has even less room to manoeuver, and there will
be even more pressure on it to cut its carbon.
Posted: Tuesday, April 26th, 2011. Filed in Climate Change News.